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Penguin 2.0: How to become an online authority

The SEO world is abuzz following the release of Penguin 2.0, though there have been several updates to the algorithm since it launched in April 2012.

The release took place on 22 May, 2013 with additional changes and tweaks likely to take place over the summer months. You can watch the video for yourself below, but, as well as investing in quality content, one of the key phrases that was of considerable interest was this from Matt Cutts:

We are trying to detect when someone is an authority in a specific space and trying to make those authorities rank higher.

So the question that marketers need to ask themselves is ‘How do you create an Authority brand online?’ It’s time online marketers replaced this question over their traditional ‘how do I get to the top of Google?’

Create an authority website, full of interesting content that your target customers want to read and share and you will be rewarded by Google. But not just by Google, but by your customers too.

How do I create an authority website?

Here’s how:

Invest in quality content

Everything you create – both on and offsite - should have quality at its core. Create content for users, not search engines. Hire real writers, real content marketing experts with an abundance of ideas that can help turn your business into an authority online content platform.

Invest in blogs, news, features, white papers, infographics, videos; but only if they are relevant and likely to have a real benefit to your customer base.

Invest in onsite content

Google rewards websites that publish content on their own websites. It is a key metric, and growing in importance, brands and businesses that fail to invest in developing onsite content strategies are not going to succeed online.

True, there is often more visibility and increased brand ‘eye-balls’ on content published to your own website, but publishing onsite is a necessity post-Penguin. Publishing content to your own site means that you can share content using social media and generate more inbound links to your site as a result.

Something else worth remembering is that you retain all publishing control when you own the platform you are publishing on – your own website – so you can go back and edit content published again if necessary.

Amplify your content to create authority

Think first about where you want your content to be amplified, the audience and quality of where you are seeding, it's not just about a link anymore.

With this in mind, avoid poor quality link neighbourhoods. Inbound links and content amplification are important metrics that Google uses to rank authority.

It’s not about masses of poor quality inbound links – it’s about relevant, high value content and inbound links from relevant and quality sites and authors that share a story, is useful to your customer base and shareable.

Social shares are very important for search success, but also in building your authority in Google’s eyes.

Increase traffic to your website

Google has already stressed that it is looking to judge sites on their authority. What metrics can Google use to determine authority?

Here are just a few of them:

Inbound links.

Social shares.

Time on site.

Bounce rate.

Visitor numbers.

Yes, visitor numbers can be manipulated and bought, but rarely to hit all of the above metrics.

If you use content amplification services such as native advertising or guest posting to promote good content to relevant audiences, all the above metrics are likely to show up in your favour – your social shares, time on site are going to increase, letting Google know that you are an authority.

Implement these changes and invest time and energy in turning yourself, your business and your website into an authority on a chosen topic and, as Cutts points out, any future Google changes 'shouldn’t be a big surprise and you shouldn't have to make too many changes'.

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Gareth Marshall, Copywriter at Click Consult

Great article, Dale. I've been really intrigued in recent weeks about utilising Google+. It's a great idea for Authorship rank of course, but also something that I'm beginning to learn that all online brands should have regardless. Someone asked at a recent workshop I attended "why should I use Google+?" and, having given all of the benefits, the speaker summed up by saying "at the end of the day, Google+ is Google and there's nothing wrong with getting into bed with the world's biggest search engine". I thought that summed it up perfectly!

over 4 years ago

Peter Scavnicky, Management Manager at Google

Did u think about present your idea via video ? surely is the future. i can recommend you makemoneymovie.info i tried with it !

over 4 years ago

Jack Jarvis, Owner at The Website Review Company

The problem is Google+ has the potential to be a great social platform, but if Google uses G+ as an authority indicator then, unfortunately SEO 'professionals' will simply create accounts in various knowledge sectors.

The idea behind more authority is great, but as per usual, what starts with good intentions will be miss-used and at some point devalued.

For those that are genuine, write under your name that is linked to Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter etc.

Hopefully all these sources linked will show you are genuine and not trying to cheat the system.

over 4 years ago

Stuart McMillan, Deputy Head of Ecommerce at Schuh

I wonder if Google Trusted Stores http://www.google.com/trustedstores/ will ever contribute to 'authority' when it comes to ecommerce? Trust and authority are very much related, and if Google is going to move in to the 'trust space', will that then bleed into the authority calculations...

"you retain all publishing control when you own the platform you are publishing on "

That's why I always tell site owners to use social channels are the promotion platform, not the publishing platform. You're renting space from Facebook and I don't think it's worth the risk if something happened.

This is a good content explaining all the aspects which will lead to authorization..I specially liked the segregated subtitles guiding about the traffic attraction and the amplification part..the video was an added advantage to the content..

We connected our site to G+ but our company logo still doesn't show in search results...our rankngs dropped big time because of the latest update and did everything reccomended but still no improvements :(

What is interesting about Matt Cutt's comment is the "someone" mentioned and "make those authorities rank higher" major take away on it is - Google Authorship and your articles associate with them. However, I don't think anyone could be an authority on ten subjects, only one or two. Better yet concentrate on one!

over 4 years ago

Jack Jarvis, Owner at The Website Review Company

@Fraser - G+ will pick up your logo when it deems right. There are many big sites that it still doesn't show it for. Just keep using it as a social platform and in good time Google may add it.

With regards to the link for Penguin recovery...its not something that can just be fixed over night. Get a consultant to review your links, remove any bad links, and start building good quality ones.

Over time (not in the next few weeks or maybe months) you will see the rewards.

I've been using authorship markup for a while now, its good to see it continues to be one of Matt's talking points and is becoming a real way to boost credibility for a particular author's written work.

Thanks for the positive feedback everyone; glad you liked the post. Is there any particular area around content, SEO, Penguin, G+ that you might be interested in reading a post on next? Open to suggestions.

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